Bertille Daran will defend her thesis entitled “Land use and the economics of climate diplomacy,” co-supervised by Basak Bayramoglu (INRAE, PSAE) and Laurent Lamy (ENPC, CIRED), on Friday, February 20, 2026, at 4 p.m. at CIRED (45bis, avenue de la Belle Gabrielle, 94130 Nogent-sur-Marne), Main Building, 1st floor amphitheater.
This thesis studies how the heterogeneity of countries in their domestic economic structures, and in particular land use, both shape international climate diplomacy and are reshaped by it. Chapter 1 examines descriptively whether bargaining clubs, defined as small coalitions of countries with aligned positions, can emerge within the UNFCCC negotiation process, focusing on agriculture-related response options and cooperation mechanisms. Using UNFCCC official texts and an original survey of climate negotiators, it identifies patterns of alignment across countries through hierarchical lustering. The results suggest that structured bargaining clubs do emerge, but that these groupings only weakly align with existing negotiation coalitions. Chapter 2 analyzes whether agricultural trade liberalization can serve as an effective incentive for countries to strengthen international climate cooperation. It develops a spatial general equilibrium trade model with heterogeneous land productivity and embeds it in a simultaneous-move coalition formation game. The simulations show that agricultural trade incentives can support large and stable coalitions, reduce global emissions, and increase social welfare. However, the chapter also highlights that these incentives can generate adverse effects, underscoring the need for complementary safeguards to limit land-use change and ensure food security. Chapter 3 studies the environmental effects of climate aid by estimating its impact on deforestation in Africa between 2001 and 2021. Using a novel geocoded dataset of climate aid projects and an instrumental variable strategy, the chapter finds that climate aid
can increase deforestation, particularly in areas with dense forest cover.